Math
by books-and-starss
Summary: Seth is having trouble with his math homework, so he goes to Kendra for help.


Seth was getting frustrated. He'd been working on his math homework for almost an hour now (although it felt _way _longer than that). He still hadn't gotten much done, as evidenced by the doodles in the margins of his notebook.

He sat at his desk in the attic with a math textbook open in front of him right next to the notebook he had to write in. Calvin was lying flat on his stomach on the desk close to the math homework, facedown. He had been trying, rather unsuccessfully, to help.

"I can't do this," Calvin grumbled. "Why don't you just ask Kendra for help?"

Seth sighed. He had had that thought himself but dismissed it, not wanting to request help from his older sister, but now he was seriously about to start considering it if he couldn't figure out this problem he was stuck on.

"How 'bout we just skip this one and come back to it?" he said, ignoring Calvin's suggestion.

"I guess we can try the next one," Calvin mumbled, "but it's been a while since I've done math. I'm not sure I can remember anything."

Seth moved ahead to the next problem in his assignment. He frowned. This one was even worse than the last one. He didn't even know where to start. He sighed again and set his head in his hands, willing himself not to cry. It was just a stupid math assignment, and that would be super embarrassing, especially in front of Calvin.

He stood up. "Okay," he said, stretching the word out in a dramatic sigh. "I'm gonna go get Kendra."

…

Kendra scooted her chair back from the desk. "I dunno how to do this," she said.

"Yes, you do!" Seth argued. "You already did this!"

"I knew how to do it when I was in your class, but that was two years ago. Two years is a long time, and I'm not using this stuff in my math class. I forgot."

"But you know everything!" Seth protested.

"No, I don't!" Kendra yelled back at him.

Seth groaned loudly and waved his hands in the air, mumbling something incomprehensible.

Calvin still sat on the desk, now looking around awkwardly to try to avoid the sibling argument happening in front of him.

"Hey, I know what we can do," Kendra said, perking up. "Bracken is coming over today. Why don't we see if he can help you when he gets here?"

Seth had almost started to get excited, thinking Kendra might have remembered how to do the math problem, but now he slouched in his chair and scoffed. "Bracken? Bracken doesn't know math."

"What?" Kendra asked. "Why wouldn't he?"

Seth rolled his eyes. "He's a unicorn. Plus, he was stuck in a Turkish prison for the past few centuries. More like why _would _he know how to do math?"

Kendra stared straight ahead at nothing. "Huh," she said. "I'd never thought of that. Maybe you're right. But probably not. Bracken's smart. I'd bet he can help."

"Bet," Seth said. "Five bucks."

It was Kendra's turn to roll her eyes. "Deal," she sighed.

…

As soon as Bracken walked in the front door of Fablehaven's main house, Kendra and Seth were there to greet him – almost weirdly fast, he thought. They had either been really looking forward to seeing him, or they were up to something.

Kendra willingly gave Bracken a hug, as was her customary greeting (in all honesty, it was also how she greeted most people. Bracken didn't think he got any special treatment), and then they spent a couple minutes chasing Seth around the house. This was the same way Bracken and Seth tended to greet each other when Bracken visited – Bracken chasing Seth down for a hug. Kendra enjoyed helping try to catch Seth to wrangle him into a group hug.

After the running was complete and hugs were given all around, Kendra asked Bracken a question that seemed to be what had been on her mind when she and Seth were waiting at the door for him to come in. "Hey, Bracken, do you know anything about math?"

"Math?" Bracken clarified. "Like with numbers and equations?"

"Yeah," Kendra and Seth answered in unison, nodding their heads.

"Not at all. Why would I?"

Seth pumped his fist enthusiastically and jumped up and down. "Yes!" he shouted. Kendra looked utterly crestfallen. Neither reaction made any sense whatsoever to Bracken.

His confusion must have been visible on his face because Kendra explained, "I told Seth he should ask you for help with his math homework. I thought you might know how to help him. He bet me five dollars that you wouldn't be able to help."

"Oh," Bracken said. "I'm sorry. I'd like to help. Maybe you can show me the homework and I can try to figure it out."

Seth had calmed down enough to join the conversation. "I mean, you can try. But I don't think you'll get it. I'm in the class right now, and Kendra was in the class two years ago, and we can't do it. She forgot already." He shook his head dramatically and gave Kendra a disappointed look.

Kendra held up her hands defensively. "Don't look at me like that! It's not like you'd be able to do math from two years ago now either! It's not my job to remember that stuff once I don't need it anymore. Once you can get it enough to pass the class, you don't need it anymore. You won't remember it in two years either."

"Guess you're right about that. I'm not gonna keep this math stuff in my brain when I don't have to anymore."

Kendra turned back to Bracken. "You're sure you want to try?"

Bracken gave a determined nod. "It can't hurt to try, can it? I'd like to help any way I can. Besides, how bad can it be?"

Seth laughed a little at that. "You say that now, but wait 'til you try the problem. Don't say we didn't warn you."

…

Kendra, Seth, and Bracken sat around the kitchen table. After Bracken having tried to help Seth with his homework unsuccessfully for quite some time, they were all dejected and out of ideas.

Bracken had taken one look at the homework, and from the expression on his face, Kendra and Seth had known immediately that he had no idea what was going on. Despite that, he sat down and tried to figure out what the numbers meant and what he was supposed to do with them. It was very considerate of him, and both of the siblings appreciated his efforts, but he made no progress.

Kendra knew that it didn't affect her in the slightest whether or not Seth understood his homework (aside from the fact that it would cause a major increase in how often and how loudly he complained), but she had gotten invested in helping, and she wasn't quite ready to give up yet.

She stared at the table, deep in thought. What if she were to google how to do the question? That was as good an idea as any. Better yet, she could find some sort of review game and play it with Seth! Kendra had always loved review games, and they definitely could make schoolwork fun.

She sat up straight in her chair and pulled her phone out of her pocket. Seth looked up. "What are you doing?" At the question, Bracken also looked up at her.

Kendra quickly pulled up the app store to download the game she had in mind. She knew just the perfect thing to do. She was confident that Seth would love it. "Kahoot," she said.

"What?" Bracken asked.

Seth looked confused for a minute, but then he seemed to get it. He laughed and slapped the table. Then he paused. "Wait- why? I mean, Kahoot is great and all, but why are you getting it out?"

"Math games," Kendra muttered. "Review."

"Kahoot has math?" Seth asked.

"Sure," Kendra told him. "You know it's just a public thing. We can make our own if we want. People just upload stuff. I'm sure there are math review quizzes."

Seth laughed again. "That's great," he said. "We can play math on Kahoot."

Bracken appeared to have no idea what was going on. "What's Kahoot?"

Kendra decided to fill him in on what was going on. "Kahoot is this website or app where anyone can basically make true or false quizzes, and then you can play them. You get it up on a big screen where it will show the question and the choices of answers, and then everybody who's playing chooses whichever answer they think is right. Once everybody answers, the game shows the right answer, and the combination of accuracy and speed gives you points. After you answer all the questions, whoever has the most points wins."

"And it has good music," Seth added.

Kendra laughed. "Yeah. And good music."

…

Seth sat on the floor of the living room in front of the right side of the couch. Bracken was sitting in front of the left side of the couch, beside Seth but just far enough away that Seth couldn't easily see the screen of the phone in his hands, which he was currently borrowing from Dale. Calvin sat on the coffee table next to the computer so he could switch the questions.

The coffee table in front of the couch had been scooted to about halfway across the room, where Kendra had her laptop propped up and was pulling up the math Kahoot she had chosen to play. Once she got the game started and showed Calvin how to switch screens, she would sit on the back of the couch in the middle to play. She'd be able to see Seth and Bracken's answers, but nobody was really worried about her cheating off of them since she was better at math anyway.

"All right," Kendra muttered as the screen changed, displaying the game code and starting the Kahoot music. She scooted on her knees over to where Bracken was sitting and helped him get to the Kahoot website.

Seth typed the game code into the bar on his phone. The page then asked him to choose a name. He giggled. What name should he do this time? This was always his favorite part of Kahoots in school – at least, when the teachers actually let the class pick their usernames instead of making them use their real names.

And then an idea occurred to him- the perfect username. _OG Bracken_, he typed into the nickname bar. Once he joined the game, he sat up straight and looked up at the computer. Bracken had joined the game- with just his boring normal name, which made sense. Kendra was settling in to her position on the back of the couch, at the same time joining the game. She also stuck with her real name.

Bracken frowned at the computer. He turned to Seth. "Why are you me?"

Seth laughed. "I'm OG you," he said.

Seth could practically hear Kendra rolling her eyes. "It's a meme," she explained to Bracken, who turned to look at her. "He's just being an idiot."

Seth laughed again. "Can we start the game now?"

Kendra nodded. Calvin used his whole hand to slide the cursor over to the start button and then clicked it by leaning with both hands on the mouse.

The question came up on the loading screen, giving them a few seconds to think before the answers were available. Seth had some scratch paper and a calculator on the floor next to him, and the questions would give enough time for everyone to solve the problems if they needed it, but Seth thought he could figure this one out without a calculator.

Seth took his time thinking the problem out carefully. He preferred to win Kahoots when possible. He selected his answer, then glanced over to see how his opponents were doing. Kendra was watching the computer screen, waiting for all three answers to be in and the question to move to show the right answer. She'd probably put in her answer about right away. Seth could've sworn she was some kind of supergenius (not that he'd tell her that). Bracken was looking down at his screen. He glanced up and met Seth's eyes, and then he looked back down and chose the green option.

The computer screen changed to show the four answer options. Two people had chosen the yellow answer, and one had chosen the green. Yellow was right. Seth felt a rush of pride. "You can go," he told Calvin, who sent him an 'okay' sign and clicked to change the screen to the scores. Kendra was in the lead with the most points, Seth was second, and Bracken was losing with zero points. Calvin clicked 'next' again, and the next question came up.

The game continued in the same way for a while. Kendra seemed to know all of the answers immediately, with a few exceptions. Seth took more time to figure out the problems, but he was getting most of them. On occasion, he'd just guess if he didn't know, and usually Kendra would try to explain the problem to him after when they were looking at their scores. Bracken didn't seem to be going by any method or anything, but every once in a while, he'd get a correct answer, although never enough answers to move him up another place in the ranking and pass Seth.

At about question twenty, Seth looked at Bracken. "Wow, you really don't know math, do you?"

Bracken laughed lightly. "Nope. I'm just guessing. Hey, maybe you're not the best in your class at math, but at least you're better than me!" He offered an encouraging smile.

Seth returned the smile. Maybe it was okay not to be the best in school. There were other areas that he was good at anyway. And it was nice to know that he always had friends who were willing to help him learn, even if they were just his sister who kept destroying everybody at math and her boyfriend who didn't know the first thing about algebra.


End file.
